I
Better, I Should Say, Take The _Rapido_ Which Leaves Madrid Three Times
A Week At Nine-Thirty In The Morning, Than The Night Express Which
Leaves As Often At The Same Hour In The Evening.
Since there are now
such good day trains on the chief Spanish lines, it is flying in the
face
Of Providence not to go by them; they might be suddenly taken off;
besides, they have excellent restaurant-cars, and there is, moreover,
always the fascinating and often the memorable landscape which they pass
through. By no fault of ours that I can remember, our train was rather
crowded; that is, four or five out of the eight places in our corridor
compartment were taken, and we were afraid at every stop that more
people would get in, though I do not know that it was our anxieties kept
them out. For the matter of that, I do not know why I employed an
interpreter at Madrid to get my ticket stamped at the ticket-office; it
required merely the presentation of the ticket at the window; but the
interpreter seemed to wish it and it enabled him to practise his English
with me, and I realized that he must live. In a peseta's worth of
gratitude he followed us to our carriage, and he did not molest the
_mozo_ in putting our bags into the racks, though he hovered about the
door till the train started; and it just now occurs to me that he may
have thought a peseta was not a sufficient return for his gratitude; he
had rendered us no service.
At Aranjuez the wheat-lands, which began to widen about us as soon as we
got beyond the suburbs of Madrid, gave way to the groves and gardens of
that really charming pleasaunce, charming quite from the station, with
grounds penetrated by placid waters overhung by the English elms which
the Castilians are so happy in having naturalized in their treeless
waste. Multitudes of nightingales are said to sing among them, but it
was not the season for hearing them from the train; and we made what
shift we could with the strawberry and asparagus beds which we could see
plainly, and the peach trees and cherry trees. One of these had
committed the solecism of blossoming in October, instead of April or
May, when the nobility came to their villas.
We had often said during our stay in Madrid that we should certainly
come for a day at Aranjuez; and here we were, passing it with a five
minutes' stop. I am sure it merited much more, not only for its many
proud memories, but for its shameful ones, which are apt to be so much
more lasting in the case of royal pleasaunces. The great Catholic King
Ferdinand inherited the place with the Mastership of the Order of
Santiago; Charles V. used to come there for the shooting, and Philip
II., Charleses III. and IV., and Ferdinand VII.
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